


Hindsight

by kijikun, Obstinate Nocturna (ChrisCrossed)



Series: To the Very Spark [2]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Implied dubcon, M/M, because amnesiac Orion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 12:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7268527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kijikun/pseuds/kijikun, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrisCrossed/pseuds/Obstinate%20Nocturna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Megatron thought this would be easy; he thought he knew everything there was to know about Orion Pax. </p><p>He was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Optimus -- no Orion, Megatron needed to start thinking of him as Orion again, he couldn’t afford to slip up -- looked lost and hesitant when Megatron showed him to his quarters. "We -- aren't sharing quarters?"

Megatron looked over at him, trying to hide the surprise in his field -- of course _Orion_ would want to share a hab-suite, he had shared a berth with Megatronus at every given opportunity, physically affectionate as he was even before they had moved from merely brothers in the cause to lovers. “I thought you would prefer a space of your own,” He finally said.

Orion looked down, hand coming up to cover his own spark. "Is -- is it because I lost the newspark?" He asked glyphs and field full of grief and pain. "I -- I remember being sparked. I was going to tell you and then -- I don't remember what happened after. But I can't feel her anymore."

“You were…” Megatron’s vocalizer failed him as he stared at Optimus -- _Orion, Orion_ \-- with wide optics. Sparked. Orion had been _sparked_ when they went before the Senate? Did -- had it been extinguished when he took on the Matrix? Surely he would have heard if the _Prime_ had gone through an emergence -- unless Optimus had kept a secret somehow, had hidden their… 

Did he have a _sparkling_ out there somewhere? Or had it -- _she,_ Orion called the newspark a she -- died when Megatron -- 

Orion field turned anguished and his optics shimmered. "You didn't know?" His hand was still pressed hard over his spark. "Could the Autobots have --?"

Megatron reached up, cupping the smaller mech’s cheek. “There will be vengeance for our newspark,” he said, and _oh_ , would there be vengeance ( _how would things be different if he’d known, if he’d just **let Orion speak to him** before the Senate meeting? No, he couldn’t think like that, couldn’t afford to think like that, but **what if** \--_), “And I am still no large fan of having datapads scattered everywhere in my quarters, but my door is always open to you, Orion,” he smirked.

Trembling slightly, Orion nodded. "Could I join you there tonight, Megatronus? I find I do not wish to be alone right now."

This was a bad idea. He had not been the mech who loved Orion Pax for millennia. He had nothing but hate in his spark for Optimus Prime -- _but --_

Orion's optics were still so spark wrenching blue and his field so welcoming --

A single night or two couldn't hurt. It would only serve to make Orion more loyal. “As I said, my door is _always_ open to you, Orion,” Megatron purred, taking Orion’s chin in his claws and tipping his face up toward his.

Orion's smile bloomed across his face like a Praxian crystal and a strangely familiar warmth swirled in Megatron's spark. "Thank you," Orion murmured. "You have always been kinder than you let yourself believe."

- _One Earth Month Later_ -

If Megatron wasn’t seeing it with his own optics, he wouldn’t believe it. “It seems,” Megatron murmured, putting a hand on the glass of the stasis pod that the deciphered Iaconian relic coordinates had led them to, “That Orion Pax wasn’t completely out of his processor.” He lingered only a moment longer before turning toward Breakdown. “Get them to the _Nemesis_ , immediately,” he ordered, “And take care, Breakdown,” he said, looking through the glass at the sparkling peacefully frozen in stasis, in the arms of an Autobot guard, “That’s my daughter in there.”


	2. Chapter 2

"Optimus," Ratchet said looking up from his console. "I think you should take a look at this. The Decepticons are sending out a message on all Cybertronian frequencies."

Optimus reluctantly looked away from the database. He felt so close to finding another location and after handing so much over to the Decepticons while he suffered from amnesia -- at least that's what he'd been told but he trusted Ratchet -- he felt reluctant to stop his efforts. Megatron could _not_ be allowed to find any more of the relics. "What is the message, Ratchet?"

Ratchet hit a few keys -- likely encrypting their own location and frequency -- before pulling the video up onto the screens.

"Autobots, we have recovered a _relic_ of great importance to your Prime," Megatron's voice and image filled the screen. His glyphs tasted like rancid oil to Optimus. Gloating was not a new low for Megatron, but he didn’t usually go out of his way like this to do it. But a relic of importance solely to _him_? Optimus racked his processors for such an item and came up with nothing. Nothing that would justify Megatron’s bragging. "If Prime wishes to see this _relic_ again, he and all Autobots on Earth will surrender to me at the coordinates and time transmitted with this message." 

“Oh please,” Rachet scoffed.

Megatron's smile grew. "Come, Optimus," the camera shifted from Megatron to a tiny figure curled up in recharge on a giant berth. "Our sparkling misses her Carrier."

The floor felt like it had fallen from under Optimus' pedes. “Prima,” he whispered, optics wide as he stared at the image of his sparkling on the screen, his hand rising to reach for her before he could stop himself. "No. He -- no." 

“Optimus --” Ratchet started, then stopped, looking between Optimus and the frozen image on the screen, “You know we can’t -- if we surrender --”

“He has my daughter, Ratchet,” Optimus snapped, almost growling, “He has -- I thought she was dead, I thought she died on Cybertron, but she’s alive and _Megatron has her_.”

“She’s his daughter too, do you really think he’d hurt her?” Ratchet reminded him, trying to soothe him.

Some part of Optimus -- what was left, perhaps, of Orion Pax -- wanted to say no, wanted desperately to say that he didn’t believe even Megatron had sunk low enough that the Decepticon Warlord would hurt their sparkling. “I would put nothing past Megatron at this point,” he ground out, denta and fists clenching almost painfully. "Especially with not how he used me when I -- she can't be left with him. Ratchet, I can't leave my sparkling alone with him."

"Easy, Optimus," Ratchet said, hand on his arm. His field was comforting, but resigned. It bristled Optimus more than it soothed. "We'll figure something out, but you know we can't surrender like that. Not even for Prima."

Optimus swallowed down the urge to snap and hit Ratchet’s hand off of him; he knew that his medic and oldest friend was right. His carrier instincts -- while wanting what was best and safest for his sparkling -- were not compatible with what was best for the Autobots, or for what was left of Cybertron and her people. He was not Orion Pax anymore -- he was Optimus Prime. And as much as it tore his spark in two, he had a larger obligation than to his sparkling. “I -- you are correct, Ratchet,” Optimus said quietly, closing his optics.

Ratchet pulled him into a loose hug, a rare thing for the medic. "Primus, Optimus I'm sorry. I know how you mourned her," he said gently. "We'll figure out a way to get her back safely. Nothing is going to hurt little Prima."

Optimus hugged Ratchet back tightly, his hands clenching on Ratchet’s back, not daring to say anything in case he broke into the sobs making his smokestacks hitch unevenly.

"I've got you, Optimus," Ratchet told him, stroking the back of his helm. "You can let it out."

A sob slipped from Optimus' vocalizer. "I thought she was dead, Ratchet. I mourned her. I should have -- if I hadn't left her with Alpha Trion -- " 

“We were fighting a war, Optimus, she would have been in more danger with you than anywhere else,” Ratchet reminded him, as gentle as Optimus had ever heard him. "No one thought the archives would fall before we could -- it wasn't your fault."

Optimus shook his helm slightly. It was his fault. He had been the _Prime_ when the Archives fell, when Iacon fell. He was Prima's _carrier_. "I could have prevented the war if I'd just _told him._ "

“You don’t know that, Optimus,” Ratchet said firmly, placing a hand on Optimus face plates, “For all we know all it would have done is made you even more of a target for the Decepticons -- and have made Prima one too.”

Optimus heard himself make a sound choked with misery and old pain. "I loved him. I should have trusted him -- talked to him. I know it must have looked like I betrayed him -- if I go alone, talk to him -- maybe --"

Ratchet shook his helm again. "Optimus, stop. We've hashed this out so many times. You _know_ doing this to yourself won't change anything. He should have listened to you after you became Prime regardless if he was everything he said he was. And even if he _was_ then, Megatron is now a mech that is willing to hold his own sparkling hostage -- he isn't your Megatronus. Not anymore."

“I know that,” Optimus said, disappointment and bitterness and resignation to both those feelings curling around his glyphs. He couldn’t help wondering just _what_ had happened while he was amnesiac and in the Decepticons’ clutches. The same clutches that now had his tiny sparkling.

"I wish I could fix things for you," Ratchet sounding tired and spark sick. "I wish this was something I could heal, but I can't partly because you keep re-opening the wound."

“I’m sorry, Ratchet,” Optimus apologized, sincerely. If he knew how to let go of what Megatron and he once were -- well, Optimus wasn’t _entirely_ sure he _would_ be willing to give up that part of himself, but it would certainly make his life and countless others’ easier if he _could_.

Ratchet chuckled sadly. "Don't apologize, Optimus. I know it's not easy." He straightened his shoulder struts slightly. "I think the first thing we need to find out is if that _is_ truly Prima. She would have been much older by now. Though I suppose if she was in stasis --"

"The relics," Optimus said, "Megatron referred to her as a relic and I had left her with Alpha Trion. He must have placed her in one of the pods he was using to send out the treasures and weapons in the vaults."

“Glitched old fool,” Ratchet murmured, a bit awed, “That Buckethead better have Knock Out taking care of her, prolonged stasis can have side effects for a fully grown mech, much less a sparkling. _Completely reversible_ side effects with proper treatment and care,” Ratchet added hastily at Optimus’ alarmed look, "I do wonder at him sending her in a pod alone, he was glitched not stupid.”

Optimus and Ratchet both went silent and still before looking at each other. “You don’t think --”

“He doesn’t just have Prima,” Optimus muttered, putting a hand over his optics, “He has an _Autobot hostage_.”

Ratchet scowled the way he did when he was contemplating something. "Do you remember who the guards were for Alpha Trion? Someone that could possible escape on their own?"

Optimus frowned, racking his memory banks. “I’m afraid not. We did not have many experienced mechs to spare, and I believe Alpha Trion was assigned two new cadets as guards.” That much Optimus remembered well -- it had been Jazz’s suggestion, and Optimus had been offended that his TIC had been so blase with guarding an important figure like Alpha Trion, but Jazz had staked his reputation on the two he’d recommended.

Even with Jazz’s recommendations, though, nothing could have protected Alpha Trion from Iacon’s razing. Still, though, if Jazz had recommended them… “There’s a chance. I assigned them to Alpha Trion’s guard detail on Jazz’s recommendation. Twins.”

Ratchet visibly relaxed. “Jazz, huh? Means they had at least SOME kind of spec ops training. We might not need to mount a rescue after all.”

“We should still inform the team,” Optimus said after a moment, a tad reluctantly. He would rather tell them himself about Prima -- and the potential fellow Autobot -- himself than have them learn from a Decepticon on the battlefield or from Megatron's gloating.

The sound of tires and loud music came down the ramp. "Looks like we'll be able to do that sooner than later," Ratchet exvented, patting Optimus' arm. "They won’t hold this against you."

Optimus grimaced. Besides Ratchet and Alpha Trion, he had never told anyone about Prima. Not even Prowl and Ultra Magnus knew. Jazz… well he’d never _told_ Jazz but that didn’t mean his head of Spec Ops hadn’t found out somehow anyway. Not because of a lack of trust, but for their safety, and Prima’s. The less mechs who knew about her the better. Now that Megatron had her, though, it didn’t really matter much who knew. 

He watched the three mechs he'd come to think of as more than just his team -- as his family -- pull into the main hangar, their human charges getting off or out to allow them to transform still carrying on conversations they'd been having as they came in. 

Bumblebee buzzed questioningly at the serious look Optimus must have been wearing. "My friends, we have a situation -- and I have something important to tell you all."

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally here! The TFP fic that we (mostly noct) have been hinting about for ages.


End file.
